Bangladesh Arrest Briton Suspected Of Masterminding Murder Of Secular Bloggers

Bangladesh’s security forces have arrested a British citizen and three other suspected Islamist militants over the murders of two prominent secular bloggers.

The British citizen identified as 58-year-old Touhidur Rahman is said to be the “main planner”.

The Rapid Action Battalion said it had arrested Rahman and two other “active members” of Ansarullah Bangla Team, which was banned in May over a series of killings of bloggers.

“We’ve arrested them in the capital today. We can confirm that Rahman is a British citizen of Bangladeshi origin. He is the main planner of the attacks on Avijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy Das,” Major Maksudul Alam of the RAB said on Tuesday.
“He told us that he is a British citizen,” Mufti Mahmood, the head of the RAB’s legal and media division, said, adding that the three would be paraded before the press later.

Four secular bloggers have been hacked to death in Bangladesh since the start of the year, including Roy and Das.

Roy, a US citizen who was born in Bangladesh, was murdered in February by a gang wielding machetes in an attack in Dhaka.

Das, 33, was killed in similar fashion as he headed to work at a bank in the north-eastern city of Sylhet on 13 May.